If I wrote a new book on business blogging, what would be a good list of topics?

It seems to me that with blogging, as with anything you’ve been doing for a sufficient length of time, it’s easy to fall into the way of thinking that some things are quite obvious, even though they weren’t obvious to you when you started.

The thought has been prompted by a few conversations lately, where I’ve been reminded that, although no one seems to look quizzically any more at the mention of blogs or blogging, for many people the purposes and practicalities of blogging, especially business blogging, are still not evident.

And there seems to be interest being expressed in actually blogging, by quite a few people who have up till now not shown such interest.

So much so that I’ve been thinking about doing a fresh book on the topic.

Like my e-book 7 Step Business Blog, a new book would be written for the (primarily) non-technical business owner who wants to get started and keep going, safely and productively.

A lot has changed since I wrote 7 Step Business Blog in 2005-06 – which is why I don’t sell the book any more, although it has been updated a couple of times and is now available free of charge for anyone interested in downloading it.

I’m thinking one of the key challenges for a new book will be in situating blogging appropriately within the broader framework of social media, which has evolved dramatically since I started writing that earlier book back in 2005.

My sense however is that some of the key challenges will be pretty closely aligned with the key challenges back in 2005.

Consider, for example, this list of topics which formed the agenda for the Blog Business Summit which according to my records was held in Seattle back in 2005:

Keynote Address: The Blog Advantage

Blog Business Models: What Strategies Make Money

Building Traffic: Posting isn’t Enough!

The Entrepreneurial Blog: Monetizing Your Interests

Picking a Platform: Blogging Engines Compared

True Voice: The Art and Science of Blog Writing

Good Blog Design: Speed, Accessibility, Transparency, and Clarity

Corporate Blogging: Strategy and Policy Marketing

Strategies and Tactics: PR and Beyond

Dealing with Bloggers: Partnering and Defense Strategies

Enhancing Internal Communications with Blogs, Wikis, and More

Media Blogging: Podcasting and Beyond

On the last item in the list, Media Blogging: Podcasting and Beyond, I find it a fascinating illustration of the speed of change that video, now so big, wasn’t deemed worthy at that time of even a mention in the list. The topic “Dealing with Bloggers: Partnering and Defense Strategies” would now have to be re-worked to relate to Facebook, Twitter and other social platforms.

And with the effective takeover by WordPress of at least the non-enterprise blogosphere, the discussion about blogging platforms would have to be different now.

But still an interesting list.

Assuming I go through with the idea of producing a new book on blogging, I’d love to hear suggestions from readers of this blog as to what to include in the book.

Please share your thoughts here in the Comments, or via the Contact page. I will appreciate that very much.

This post lists some resources to help someone who has good web skills but does not know a lot about blogging and wants to set up a blog as part of, or an adjunct to, a business website.

wordPrerss button I’m putting the list of links together tonight, following a conversation with a colleague in the web marketing business who rang tonight and asked me for some guidance. For what he had in mind, a WordPress.org site seemed the most practical way to go. (Note: not a WordPress.com site).

I said there were a lot of resources available for WordPress.org and a very large user base. I offered to send him some links.

So, he asked very politely, could I do that by tomorrow morning?

Hmmmm.

Oh sure, why not?

That was a few hours ago. What I thought I had at my fingertips has in fact taken some searching, sorting and sifting to put together for the required purpose. It’s been a good exercise to do and I hope some people find the information helpful.

So what am I sending?

some information on the basic process of setting up your WordPress site
how to find a theme
some indication of setup costs if you don’t want to do it all yourself
a great offer on packaged guidance and support from an excellent teacher
a good site for troubleshooting
suggestion about joining groups such as LinkedIn Bloggers

Setting Up Your WordPress Site

If you are a very thorough person and like to do everything by the book, you may want to start with the very detailed approach provided by WordPress on their New to WordPress – Where to Start page.

The WordPress Codex provides a very good step by step installation guide, including how to set up your database (including how to do that with different back end control panels)

There is a good, basic video on installing a WordPress.org site at the Optiniche blog. It won’t work as a stand alone guide because it does not explain how to set up a database: for that, you need to watch the companion video tutorial on setting up a database (using CPanel) – or see the WordPress onsite guide as above.

Where possible, I like to use Fantastico for setting up a WordPress site. It automates some processes which can be daunting the first (and maybe second or third) time you do a manual install. Optiniche again have a good video explaining how to do one-click install with Fantastico. If your web hosting service provides Fantastico and has a reasonably current version of WordPress installed, that can be a very good way to go.

Themes

There are so many themes (what we used to call templates, but what WordPress insists on calling themes) available for WordPress that you can spend a lot of time ploughing through demos to pick one you want, or you could pay an experienced designer to design an original theme for you. It needs to be understood that designing a WordPress one-off theme is a non-trivial task and you should expect to pay accordingly. It’s not just a graphic thing – a professionally designed theme has to have all the correct coding in place to be effective.

There are many good to excellent themes which are either free or relatively quite economic (as in less than $100). After many hours looking at themes and much experimentation over the years, I would currently recommend with confidence a couple of sites with themes I like and expect to function well: Brian Gardner and Daily Blog Tips.

An Idea of Setup Costs

Many of us do our own setting up of WordPress sites. Of course, that’s not really free, assuming we value our own time, but there is a level of satisfaction in knowing how a site is set up and having sufficient knowledge to fix minor problems without having to call on someone else.

There are many companies and individual specialists who will provide various services, from a full setup of your WordPress site, to functional and styling integration with your website, to promoting your blog and helping you build traffic.

As an indication of basic costs, my friend and colleague Sarah Lewis knows her WordPress onions and offers a range of services, with indicative pricing, starting with a basic blog package setup at US$650. That seems very reasonable to me (I know how much time you can spend on these things).

Packaged Guidance and Support

Last year at BlogWorld Expo I had the good fortune to sit in on a presentation by Sherman Hu. What he covered was in a sense basic information for me, but remembering how bamboozled I had been originally and for a long time at that, by WordPress and a lot of the intricacies of blogging generally, I was tremendously impressed with Sherman’s facility in taking what I had found complex and making it simple. The point of that little anecdote is that Sherman has put together a set of WordPress tutorials. I haven’t seen them but I have, as I say, seen him in action and I can only assume they will be good. The videos come as part of a membership site package, which costs $75 a quarter, or $250 for a year, with various resources, including videoconferences, teleseminars and podcasts. Has to be good value.

Troubleshooting

As a non-technical person, I have spent more hours than I care to think about in looking for information online to help me solve problems with WordPress. One of the clearest, most reliable resources I have found, especially for tricky exercises like restoring a backed-up database, is the Tamba 2 WordPress Guides by Podz site.

Join Groups Such As LinkedIn Bloggers

One of the ways to gain knowledge and get guidance and help without it costing you a lot of money is by joining an online group of bloggers. The question is, how do you find such a group? And a related question is, how do you know whether that group will be helpful? It’s really a matter of trial and error.

One group I can recommend confidently is a group of which I am one of the moderators, LinkedIn Bloggers. There are over 900 members and many of them have a lot of expertise with WordPress, as well as with other aspects of blogging. One very successful blogger said to me recently that whenever she is looking for the answer to a question about blogging, the first place she thinks of asking is LinkedIn Bloggers. It’s free to join. You do need to be a member of LinkedIn and basic membership there is free too. One thing to remember is that will not approve membership if you don’t provide at the time of applying, your LinkedIn profile link, which we ask you to put in the comments box on the Yahoo Groups application page. If you have a challenge joining or don’t hear back from us, contact me via the contact form here.

Further suggestions, as always, welcome.